I love encyclopedias. As a youth my parents bought a set of Compton's. They had only black and white pictures, but I remember the wonderful feeling of pulling them out of the bottom shelf of our bookcase, turning the crisp glossy pages, and going to faraway lands in my mind I would likely never go in person.
I remember how excited I was when in the 1970’s our local IGA store offered Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. Each week after purchasing some groceries I paid a small additional amount and got one book of the set. I was so proud when I had my own complete encyclopedia set for just a fraction of the cost of the Encyclopaedia Britannica or the World Book Encyclopedia.
Funk & Wagnalls was the poor stepchild to the other two big brothers on the block. A set of the big two weighed well over 100 pounds, and my little Funk & Wagnalls set weighed about 70 pounds at the most. But to me the feel of a set of new hard bound edition books, no matter the version, with the crisp glossy pages, and the enormous amount of information in them was a feeling I will always relish.
In Psalm 119 I identify some of those same feelings I had when looking at an encyclopedia. The psalmist repeats over and over again the wonder and magnitude one has of looking at a book with its words, ideas, and the ventures into past, present, and future lands…the Bible.
See you next time,
Arlen
